Crunk it up

rapper, mu­sic pro­ducer, en­tre­pre­neur and in­ter­na­tional DJ Lil Jon (pic­tured) brings Crunk to the Gold Coast this week­end. Cred­ited with cre­at­ing and fa­mil­iaris­ing the south­ern move­ment and life­style known as Crunk, Lil Jon has crafted hits for Usher, Ciara, The Ying Yang Twins, E-40 and Ice Cube. Recog­nised for his plat­inum-sell­ing pro­duc­tions, he has also sold mil­lions of records as front­man for Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz – known for tracks Get Low and What U Goin’ Do. His last al­bum Crunk Rock was re­leased in 2010. ‘‘ Crunk Rock is a life­style,’’ he says. ‘‘It doesn’t just mean Crunk and rock mu­sic. It means we live Crunk and party like rock stars! You live life to the fullest. You don’t let no­body tell you, you can’t do noth­ing. You’re on 10.’’ While he col­lab­o­rated with artists in­clud­ing R. Kelly and LMFAO on Crunk Rock, Lil Jon says work­ing with reg­gae greats Stephen and Damian Mar­ley on the sin­gle On De Grind was a high­light. A life­long fan of reg­gae mu­sic, Lil Jon says the Mar­leys em­braced him. ‘‘It was dope that the Mar­leys opened up their home in Mi­ami to me,’’ he says. ‘‘I came to their stu­dio and recorded it. They don’t do a lot of records with a lot of dif­fer­ent peo­ple and for them to show me that much love was amaz­ing. To work with those tal­ented guys – both of them won Gram­mys be­fore and their fa­ther is a leg­end – it was amaz­ing.’’ Lil Jon says he is work­ing on a new stu­dio al­bum Party An­i­mal and has re­leased a song with LMFAO ti­tled Drink.